-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Georgia Tugend awoke Sunday with a sense of relief .

Hurricane Irene had roared through her Delaware neighborhood , vast and menacing . The wind knocked out power and scattered debris . Her house did not flood , though . Her family was safe .

`` It was not as bad as I feared it would be , '' Tugend said . `` There 's nothing I see that ca n't be fixed with a little elbow grease . ''

Irene left more than 4 million homes and businesses in the dark up and down the East Coast , and authorities blamed it for the deaths of at least 18 people in seven states . They said it caused at least $ 1 billion in damage and warned that floods could cause more chaos .

Yet a cautious sense emerged Sunday that the nation had been spared an even more damaging blow from the storm . President Barack Obama had warned last week that Irene could be a `` hurricane of historic proportions . '' Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey warned that `` from a flooding perspective , this could be a 100-year event . ''

On Sunday , Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that Tropical Storm Irene remains `` large and potentially dangerous '' as it moves inland .

`` By and large , with the evacuations and other actions taken , we have dramatically decreased the risk to life over the course of the storm , '' she said .

Forecasters and government officials warned people for days to take Irene seriously .

As the storm clouds neared , New York City took the unprecedented step of ordering 370,000 people to evacuate . Airlines canceled thousands of flights . Five airports in and around New York City closed , as did the Philadelphia airport . Mass-transit systems closed in Baltimore , Boston , New York , Philadelphia and parts of New Jersey .

After the storm moved north , however , people in places such as Ocean City , Maryland , were thankful that Irene had not left behind as much devastation as it could have .

`` It was a long night last night , but I can tell you , we dodged a missile here at Ocean City , '' Mayor Rick Meehan said .

In New Jersey , Christie praised roughly a million people who heeded warnings to evacuate the Jersey Shore . People `` decided we 're not going to be tough and cynical and hard-boiled '' and played it safe instead , he said .

Christie acknowledged taking lessons from past disasters . Some criticized him for being away during a blizzard in New Jersey last year . And the federal government received withering criticism for its response to Hurricane Katrina , which killed more than 1,700 people in seven states after coming ashore on the Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane in August 2005 .

`` I think we took a lot of lessons from every one of these different disasters , '' Christie said .

People in Washington , D.C. , also ventured out Sunday to discover that the city could have fared much worse .

`` I drove around and there were a lot of downed trees , but other than that , it was n't that bad , '' said Eric Goode .

`` It was a bit of a let down , '' said another resident , Samantha Kaplan .

In New York , the unexpected sight of the shining sun buoyed a sense that the city had escaped the kind of problems that forecasters had most feared . Those fears prompted authorities to close the city 's mass-transit system and order people in low-lying areas to evacuate .

On Sunday , though , some people asked if the danger was over-hyped .

`` A bunch of people in New York have already said to me this morning , you know , ` What was the big deal all about ? '' CNN 's Anderson Cooper said .

`` There was so much expectation about , and fear about , what might happen in New York City , '' he said . `` We 've seen , it seems like , the best possible outcome so far . Yes , we 've seen some flooding in some areas -- in New York , I 'm talking about , but certainly not as extensive as had been feared . ''

Cooper asked CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers what had become of the dire forecasts that envisioned gleaming office buildings swaying as flood waters spilled into lower Manhattan .

Myers said that when Hurricane Irene smashed into the Outer Banks of North Carolina , that contact weakened the storm .

`` It literally knocked the stuffing out of the eye , '' Myers said . `` It never got its mojo back . ''

Meteorologists measured pressure levels inside the storm that could have allowed it to strengthen back into a Category 3 hurricane , Myers said , but Irene 's romp over land in North Carolina prevented the eye wall from spinning into a more destructive storm by the time it arrived in New York .

`` It never had that opportunity because North Carolina got in the way , dry air came across over Virginia and Maryland and got in the way , and although this was very low pressure , the reason why we could never let the guard down for New York City ... was because the pressure was low enough that at any time , if this storm decided to get its act together , it could have gone from a 60-70-80 miles per hour storm -- it easily could have been a 110 -LRB- miles per hour -RRB- storm like it was in the Caribbean and like it was in the Bahamas . ''

Joseph Bruno , New York City 's commissioner of emergency management , agreed that it could have been worse .

`` We 've gotten some benefit from Mother Nature , '' he told CNN . `` We did well . We prepared well also . ''

He thanked people for heeding Mayor Michael Bloomberg 's order to evacuate , which authorities lifted at 3 p.m. Sunday .

Not everyone followed local authorities ' evacuation orders , however .

In Lewes , Delaware , about three miles from the Atlantic Ocean , Tugend ignored a mandatory evacuation order because , she said , she could think of no safer place than her home to escape the storm 's fury .

As the storm neared , she rounded up candles and matches , put fresh batteries in the flashlights and huddled with her husband , Dave Fiscbach , and their dog , Barkley , a Chesapeake Bay retriever named for basketball star Charles Barkley .

They lost power around dusk on Saturday , but propane fuels her stovetop . She boiled water for spaghetti and heated up sauce . She and her husband sat down to eat as the wind howled and driving rain fell .

`` We ate by candlelight , which we have n't done for 20 years , '' she said .

CNN 's Dan Merica contributed to this report .

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The storm largely spared New York City

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A woman in Delaware said it was n't as bad as she feared

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Irene has caused at least 18 deaths , though , and did major damage in many states

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Authorities say the potential for danger remains